Modern vehicles employ various engine-driven components, auxiliary and otherwise, that consume rotational energy output by an engine. Additionally, vehicles employ driveline components that are rotationally driven by, and thus consume, rotational energy generated by the engine. This consumption of energy by such components is in addition to the energy consumed by the engine itself, such as to overcome the friction generated by moving parts within the engine. Testing of such components, whether an auxiliary component or a driveline component, historically required removing such component from a corresponding vehicle and individually testing the component. While such historical testing method of removing a component and then testing it for energy losses or consumption associated with such component has generally proven satisfactory for its purpose, such method and apparatus was not without limitations.
What is needed then is a device and method that does not suffer from such limitations. This, in turn, will provide a device and method that permits a vehicle's total parasitic loss to be measured instead of merely a single vehicle component energy losses and permits total vehicle and individual component efficiency to be measured and calculated with minimal vehicle disassembly.